Law & Society Review: Metrics

Law & Society Review

Law & Society Review (LSR) is a peer-reviewed sociolegal journal established in 1966 by the Law and Society Association and published by Cambridge University Press (Print ISSN: 0023-9216, Online ISSN: 1540-5893). In the 2025 Clarivate Journal Citation Reports release, LSR holds a Journal Impact Factor of 2.7, ranking in Quartile 1 across both Law (27/443) and Sociology (41/222), accompanied by responsible assessment policies that preclude using journal-level metrics as proxies for individual article quality.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 7 Nov 2026

What Is Law & Society Review?

Law & Society Review is a leading peer-reviewed international academic journal dedicated to empirical and theoretical research on the interaction between law, legal institutions, and social processes. Founded in 1966 as the flagship publication of the Law and Society Association (LSA), the journal is published quarterly by Cambridge University Press (Print ISSN: 0023-9216, Online ISSN: 1540-5893). Within the broader framework of legal studies, LSR serves as a central forum bridging jurisprudence with sociology, political science, anthropology, economics, psychology, and history.

Unlike traditional student-edited American law reviews—where selection relies on rapid editorial cycles described in our guide to law review authorship norms—Law & Society Review utilizes rigorous double-anonymous peer review. General editorial leadership is based at the University of California, Irvine, led by editors Lee Cabatingan, Bill Maurer, and Justin Richland, ensuring methodological rigor across qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method legal inquiries.

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) Metrics and Disciplinary Ranking

In Clarivate’s 2025 Journal Citation Reports release, Law & Society Review recorded a Journal Impact Factor of 2.7. Indexed within Clarivate’s Web of Science Core Collection under the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), the journal maintains dual category placement:

Law: Ranked 27 out of 443 indexed journals, placing it in Quartile 1 (Q1).
Sociology: Ranked 41 out of 222 indexed journals, placing it in Quartile 1 (Q1).

The standard 2-year Journal Impact Factor quantifies the citation frequency of recently published work. It is calculated by taking the total citations received in the JCR data year to articles and reviews published by LSR during the preceding two calendar years, divided by the total number of citable items published in that same two-year window. For scholars disseminating work across platforms like SSRN and traditional indices, as compared in arXiv vs SSRN, JCR indexing provides formal institutional tracking for archival sociolegal contributions.

Citation Dynamics and Disciplinary Context

Interpreting citation metrics for Law & Society Review requires understanding the distinct publication and citation tempos of interdisciplinary legal scholarship:

Extended Citation Half-Life: Theoretical and empirical sociolegal scholarship accumulates citations steadily over five to ten years rather than exhibiting the sharp two-year citation bursts typical of clinical or laboratory sciences.
Cross-Disciplinary Dispersion: Citations to LSR scholarship originate across diverse social science and humanities journals, dispersing impact across sociology, criminology, and political science rather than concentrating strictly in legal periodicals.
Monograph and Book Review Significance: Sociolegal scholars frequently publish long-form books and extensive review symposia alongside journal articles, influencing how aggregate citation counts manifest across journal indices.

Responsible Metrics Use and Research Assessment

In accordance with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), journal-level metrics must never be used as a proxy for the quality, integrity, or significance of an individual scholar’s work. A journal’s aggregate metric score, whether for specialized sociolegal journals or broad multidisciplinary publications like the Scientific Reports impact factor, reflects a journal-level citation distribution rather than article-level merit.

Hiring, tenure, and promotion committees evaluating researchers who publish in Law & Society Review should directly review the substantive rigor, empirical validity, and methodological transparency of the candidate’s publications rather than relying on aggregate metric indicators.

Sources

Cambridge University Press. “Law & Society Review Journal Overview and Metrics.” Cambridge Core, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/law-and-society-review. Read November 7, 2026.
Law and Society Association. “Law & Society Review Profile.” Law & Society Association, https://www.lawandsociety.org/law-society-review/. Read November 7, 2026.

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